Getting help
Where to report, and what happens.
This website cannot help in an emergency and cannot receive a report. Nobody monitors it. There is no form on it. If a child is in immediate danger, call emergency services now.
Reporting a concern
Build gate — complete before publishing
Every contact detail on this page is a placeholder and must be verified against its official source, dated, and re-checked quarterly. Checklist item CRISIS-01.
| Situation | Who to contact |
|---|---|
| Immediate danger | Emergency services — 911 |
| Concern about a child in Ontario | Your local Children’s Aid Society — [VERIFY: name, number, link] |
| Concern about a child elsewhere in Canada | [VERIFY: provincial and territorial directory link] |
| A child or young person who wants to talk | [VERIFY: national helpline, phone and text] |
| Online exploitation or images | [VERIFY: national tipline] |
| An adult processing something from their own childhood | [VERIFY: adult survivor support line] |
The duty to report, in Ontario
In Ontario, a person who has reasonable grounds to suspect that a child is or may be in need of protection has a legal duty to report that suspicion directly to a children’s aid society. The duty belongs to the person who has the suspicion — it is not discharged by telling a supervisor or a colleague, and professionals who work with children are held to a higher standard.
Two things people commonly get wrong, and both delay reports:
- You do not need proof. Reasonable suspicion is the threshold. Investigating is somebody else’s job, and doing it yourself can make it harder for them to do theirs.
- The duty is ongoing. A new suspicion means a new report, even if you reported before.
This is a plain-language summary and not legal advice. The governing text is the Child, Youth and Family Services Act, 2017. Where you work, your organisation’s procedure and your professional obligations also apply.
If a child tells you something
There is a separate page for that moment, written for the next hour rather than the next week.
What we do not do
- We do not receive reports, disclosures, or concerns about individual children.
- We do not provide counselling, casework, or advocacy.
- We do not investigate anything.
- We do not publish a safeguarding contact address, because publishing one without a trained person behind it would be a promise we could not keep.